The Magnificent Maize

Welcome to Becoming Sage, where the ordinary becomes extraordinary! My name is Elan Baumgarten. This week’s episode is not just the history of something, but also a string of interesting information. What’s that information on? Well, corn of course! To begin with, corn wouldn’t be what it is today if it weren’t for humans. We have cultivated and developed the crop for at least 7,000 years. Teosinte is actually the wild crop that we domesticated into corn, also known as maize. It is believed that the domestication of Teosinte started as early as ten thousand years ago, back when it was actually a wild grass. The plant had just about twelve kernels on each plant, and they were far less nutritious than the kernels on a modern cob of corn. Laboratories that have been studying this ancient ancestor of modern corn do so in a hope to better domesticate our modern staple food. Corn has been very important in the diets of many cultures for thousands of years in the Americas, and in the last centuries it even made its way to the rest of the world! The importance of corn to the dietary history of peoples in the Americas is evident - but what about the significance to modern people both in the Americas, and around the world? In the United States alone, roughly 1.4 billion bushels of corn are consumed every year. Despite this astoundingly high number, only about 1% of the corn produced in the United States is for human consumption! The type of corn grown for humans is called sweet corn. This sweet corn was first commercially introduced in 1779. Sweet corn is harvested during the peak stages of sugar development when the corn is growing to maximize the sweetness. If you’ve ever taken a drive through the corn belt, a region of the midwestern United States that has been dominating corn production - and really all kinds of American agriculture - for nearly 175 years, then you will most certainly have seen vast fields of corn. This corn however is probably not that delicious sweet corn, but instead a corn called Field Corn. Field Corn makes up roughly 99% of the corn grown in the United States. This corn is harvested after they have fully matured and are used for a variety of purposes. Some of the more obvious applications for corn are livestock feed and cornstarch, but even these palpable uses have their interesting facts. For instance, livestock feed that is made of Field Corn actually increases the yield of dairy cows. There are also a multitude of different fascinating purposes for corn. Ethanol, for instance, is made out of fermented corn. It is a colorless and clear liquid with an extremely fragrant odor. Ethanol’s main use is as a renewable fuel source. Another use for corn is actually in the production of something called bioplastics. These plastics are created using renewable biomasses such as straw, woodchips, recycled food waste, and the topic of this episode - corn. Well, corn starch - but that’s made out of corn kernels. Corn is the second most popular vegetable in the US, but interestingly enough, it can be a fruit, vegetable, or grain depending on when it is harvested. Thank you for listening to Becoming Sage, where the ordinary becomes extraordinary! This is Elan Baumgarten. Tell your friends and family about Becoming Sage so they too can listen to the ordinary become extraordinary!